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A school building does more than house an education. It can expand opportunities for students — or limit what’s possible for them.

For too many of California’s charter public schools, the cost of securing adequate facilities has become a hindrance rather than a foundation for student success.

Consider Magnolia Public Schools in Southern California, a charter network with 12 school sites serving thousands of students, predominantly Latino children and young people from historically underserved communities.

Magnolia’s mission is unapologetically ambitious: prepare students for college and beyond through a rigorous STEAM education – science, technology, engineering, arts and math.  Still ambition alone cannot overcome the limitations of a school building — or the fiscal burden of securing one.

At two Magnolia middle schools, students receive music instruction five days a week. Yet at another campus, the charter network had to discontinue weekly music instruction because of facilities costs and space limitations this school year. 

The consequences extend to athletics. At another Magnolia campus, facilities-related expenses and constrained access to athletic spaces contributed to the elimination of seven sports programs.

Think about what those losses mean for students: fewer opportunities to discover a talent, develop a passion, build confidence or experience the sense of belonging which makes school meaningful.

It is gut-wrenching for charter school leaders who know facilities-related decisions are not simply about buildings and budgets. They are decisions about opportunity.

And they point to a larger contradiction in California’s public education system: While the state expects all public schools to provide students with a high-quality education, it has not always provided access to the facilities funding needed to deliver one.

That is why Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent signing of Assembly Bill 2316 matters.

Authored by Folsom Republican Assemblymember Josh Hoover and sponsored by the California Charter Schools Association, the law begins to correct a longstanding inequity in how California supports public school facilities.

Under California’s Charter School Facilities Program, the state generally covers half the cost of an eligible project, leaving a charter school responsible for the other half. For a $40 million project, that means finding $20 million — a heavy burden for schools serving low-income communities.

School districts facing financial hardship have a way to seek additional state assistance. Charter schools participating in the facilities program did not.

Think about that contradiction.

Two public schools can face genuine financial hardship. Both educate California students. Both are accountable for public dollars. Both are expected to provide safe, high-quality learning environments.

Yet the state’s response to their hardship could differ simply because one is a charter public school.

Beginning with the next eligible funding rounds, AB 2316 will now allow qualifying charter schools to be considered for greater state support when their required contribution would create an undue financial burden.

The law does not guarantee funding, eliminate accountability or give charter schools an advantage. It provides an opportunity to seek relief that was previously unavailable to them.

That distinction matters, especially because charter schools generally cannot rely on local school bonds in the same way school districts can.

Charter public schools are public schools. Their students are public school students. Their opportunities should not depend on whether their school can overcome an inequity the state itself created.

Terence Johnson knows those financial tradeoffs firsthand. 

Johnson is the CEO of Caliber Public Schools in Northern California which serves significant populations of Black and Latino students, English learners and children from low-income families.

For leaders like Johnson, rising facilities obligations can force difficult choices: Hire another teacher or cover building costs? Expand student support services or protect dollars for debt payments? Invest in enrichment or retain cash against an uncertain facilities expense?

Every additional dollar diverted to cover an inequitable facilities burden is a dollar unavailable for the educators, programs and student services that help children thrive.

As Johnson puts it, “For us, facilities have never been simply a real estate issue. It is an educational equity issue.”

Schools like Magnolia and Caliber are doing exactly what California says it wants from public education: expanding opportunity for historically underserved students and preparing the upcoming generation of scholars, college graduates, skilled workers, entrepreneurs and professionals.

When those schools succeed, we should want them to grow, deepen that work and reach more students.

And they need somewhere to do it.

That is what makes California’s action relevant far beyond our state.

Across the country, policymakers should examine whether their facilities funding systems make it harder for some public schools to serve the very students states say they most want to support.

AB 2316 will not solve every facilities challenge facing California’s charter public schools. But it ought to prompt lawmakers to confront other policies that create unequal opportunities for students within the same public education system.

This victory establishes an important principle.

Charter public schools are not asking California to treat them better than other public schools.

We are asking California to live up to its own promise of educational equity — and to refuse to tolerate inequity within its own public education system.

AB 2316 moves us closer to that promise.

Myrna Castrejón is president and CEO of the California Charter Schools Association, the country’s largest charter public school membership association. Before that, she was the founding executive director of Great Public Schools Now, an organization that seeks to transform public education in Los Angeles by expanding high-quality public schools with diverse governance models in the areas most in need of support.